Night falls on Roland-Garros on Thursday. The cleaver was expected and is relentless. No more trace of a Frenchman in the men’s and women’s singles draws at the end of the second round, when they were 28 on the starting line… In the whole Open era (since 1968), there had always been at least one French player in the 3rd round of Roland-Garros.

In two editions (2021 and 2023), French tennis has therefore achieved what had not been done in more than five decades. How to explain such a Berezina? a generation gap? sufficiency in performance? a lack of hatred of defeat? poor physical and mental preparations? Maybe a bit of all of that…

The expression “generational hole” often comes up when it comes to discussing the latest tricolor results in tennis. France may have had a golden generation with the Tsonga, Monfils, Gasquet and Simon, but that doesn’t explain everything, as former French player Fabrice Santoro, now a consultant on Amazon Prime, demonstrates: “It’s is too easy… I think there were obvious mistakes, which should be recognized first. For example, I spent quite a few years on the circuit, and since I stopped my career, I have been contacted by four foreign federations and I have never received a phone call from the French Federation. of tennis (FFT). This does not mean that I would have saved French tennis, but I think that at my small level, with my experience, I could have helped one or two players. »

Let’s first remember that clay is a particularly demanding surface. From the point of view of physical effort, it is undoubtedly the surface that requires the most. Were the (young) French players ready for these fights? When we see for example that a Benoît Paire gives in the fifth set against the Briton Cameron Norrie (6-4) after having led 2 sets to 1, or that a Quentin Halys lays down his arms after a big fight of 4:20 against the Argentinian Guido Pella (7-6 in the 5th set), one can ask the question.

The former French player, finalist at Roland-Garros (1988), Henri Leconte attests to this: “They are not prepared because they hold on to two sets. To play well on clay, you have to play six hours a day. You have to be able to swallow and eat clay. I did it, Tsonga did it, Yannick [Noah] did it and won. We know what the effort on clay and the constraints are. »

To take the example of the very best players in the world… Federer, Djokovic, Nadal, Murray have all built their many successes on the hatred of defeat. A mind of steel, a desire never to let go, to fight on each point to make the opponent play one more shot, so many things that we have trouble finding in our French. Henri Leconte goes in this direction: “You have to accept suffering, if you are strong on clay, you will be strong on all other surfaces. Do French players want to suffer? I don’t think, I think they’re happy where they are. »

Sure they fight, but how many beat a higher ranked player? The German Daniel Altmaier, 79th player in the world, eliminated to everyone’s surprise the Italian, 9th in the world, Jannik Sinner. With the exception of Gael Monfils (against Argentinian Sebastian Baez) and Luca Van Assche (against Italian Marco Cecchinato), all of them lost against higher ranked players. The same is true for women, and it’s even worse since some lost against lower ranked than them, like Caroline Garcia – world number 5 – who lost to Russian Anna Blinkova, 56th in the world in three sets.

We can also say that these players are sufficient. Do they really want to go higher? To hurt themselves every day in training, to tear themselves away and beat their opponent on the pitch? We can sometimes doubt it. Despite everything, we will also remember from this edition the beautiful emotions with this victory in the 5th set of Gaël Monfils against Sebastian Baez on the Central at the end of the night and after being trailing 4-0 in the last round. Lucas Pouille also thrilled us against the Austrian Jurij Rodionov. The reasons for hope are still there with this new generation of players (Arthur Fils, Luca Van Assche, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, Gabriel Debru). Now it’s up to them to tear themselves away and do better than their elders.